ever since new york
by endlessly wandering
Summary: Somehow, he always ended up back here.


**ever since new york**

Something always brought him back here.

Whether it was girls, drinks, friends, or even just a simple trip, he always found himself walking these streets every few years. He often asked himself why; why would he come here and leave his two youngest brothers at home? Why was leaving worth enough to him? Why was this place so special?

Simple: he always came back for the lights.

The lights in New York were what made the place special to him––what made leaving his brothers back home on the dreary side of Tulsa, Oklahoma that much easier. They'd never see these lights; they'd never experience the people here. They'd never get to taste the drinks, hear the stomach-wrenching laughter of friends, or feel the soft but absolutely intoxicating––absolutely riveting––skin of the women here.

God, it was paradise to him; everything he could ever want. And in the years following the war, in the years following his finally recouped mental state, having an everything was getting a second chance. Leaving your home, your family, your life was completely legal if you had an everything––if you had a second chance.

His life prior to this had been the lack of second chances. From losing his parents to losing his brother and finally to losing his sense of reality, everything seemed so far away. The football scholarship he'd won just short of the end of his senior year was taken back once his parents confessed that they couldn't afford it; they couldn't afford to send him away, no matter how much money the fucking piece of paper, the career he'd dreamed of pursuing, could provide.

The first time he encountered this place, this city of wonder, was the night they'd gotten news of their parents deaths. Shortly after he'd sent a dreary-eyed Ponyboy and a heavily paled Soda to bed, he packed a bag and whisked out the door, but not before Soda caught him red-handed.

The color still drained from his tanned face, the brightness gone from his eyes, Soda had tentatively asked, "Where you goin', Darry?"

Acting on nothing but grief, he peered down so that he was eye level with his younger brother. "Dunno, baby," he'd said, taking Soda's face into his memories and locking the box tightly. He sighed and lightly coursing a hand through the thick, dark brown mop of hair on Soda's head, murmuring, "But I gotta go somewhere."

And that was it. He'd simply kissed Soda's forehead and fled into the night, not even knowing where he was going to go or how in the hell he was going to get there. The memory was blurry now, lost in a sea of a thousand other thoughts, but somehow he ended up walking through the streets of downtown without so much as a second thought.

He didn't regret coming here, but he certainly regretted leaving each time. And maybe that was bad of him; maybe even terrible. Maybe he should've taken Soda and Ponyboy with him that first time for what could've been the last. Maybe he shouldn't have gone off to war, only to come back with a mental problem so great that Soda and Pony couldn't even speak without him getting angry.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. That's all his life was now; a bunch of 'maybes' and 'what if's', with a shit ton of nothing's in between.

This same place of wonder and paradise ultimately drove him home each time. The drinks became too much, the friends became too boring, the girls became too lackluster and fell asleep shortly after they'd stopped having sex.

Nothing good ever came from him coming here; nothing good ever came from him leaving, either, but to hell with what was good and bad. There wasn't a difference, a fine line between the two, in his mind anymore.

He had everything here; girls, friends, drinks, clubs... But at the same time, he had nothing at all.

What a lonely life to live.

And so, one night before he left, he thrust his hand into the sky and pointed his middle finger into the air. A symbol of rejection, a mask of power, a definite reason to come back to this place and ask for forgiveness.

"Take that, sky," he'd say, and though it wasn't very effective, it brought nothing but joy to him. "Take this and shove it right up your ass—wherever that happens to be."

Almost as if his second chances began at that moment each time, the sky, the lights, the people, always forgave him.


End file.
